OUR KYOTO

Philosopher's Path Walk - Kyoto Journal

The Philosopher’s Walk: Nishida Kitaro’s Contemplative Route

October 15, 2015

Taking a daily walk helped him to switch his mood. He therefore began a daily routine, walking not only to the Silver Pavilion (Ginkakuji) but to the Honen’in and Nanzenji area, where the scenery is exquisite.

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More than a Rock: Photographing Kyoto’s Gardens

October 13, 2015

Love of rocks and gardens is what lured me to Japan. During an extended visit I photographed gardens in Kyoto every day for a year…

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Nishio Haruo: Thatcher

October 3, 2015

North of Kyoto city lie the satellite communities that make up the country town or cho known as Miyama — famed for its thatched houses, and home to thatcher Nishio Haruo…

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Kyoto’s Photo Family

September 26, 2015

With some 140 published books over four decades, Mizuno Katsuhiko has been influential in defining Kyoto’s natural beauty and stimulating Kyoto people’s pride in their city. As a child, Mizuno’s daughter Kayu accompanied him on many of his photo outings…

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Kyoto Excellence: Kyotographie International Photography Festival, 3rd Edition

April 23, 2015

APRIL 18-MAY10: Fourteen exhibitions on the theme of “TRIBE,” spread across Kyoto in brilliantly-coordinated venues ranging from a sub-temple of the city’s first Zen monastery to traditional inner-city machiya to a temporary Shigeru Ban cardboard-columned pavilion in front of City Hall to “anti-fashionista” Rei Kawakubo’s local Comme Des Garcons concept store.

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Off the Wall: Yuzen and Katazome Dyeing Take Flight

March 18, 2015

“Usually my pieces grow from a bird or an idea, sometimes an endangered species that has some story around it, like fragmentation of habitat….”

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Kaneko Jun: Collaborations with Space

December 20, 2014

Taking ceramic art into sculptural-pictorial realms, Kaneko Jun is an artist who straddles cultures and in a sense transforms them with his borderless art.

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featured image Christine Flint Sato ink sumi Japanese painting Kyoto Journal

The Nature and Experience of Sumi Arts

December 13, 2014

“The sense of liberation among participants is almost palpable, there are no expectations, no ‘shoulds,’ no senses of inferiority, the baseline for everyone is the same.”

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Nakagawa Shuji: Oke Maker

March 17, 2014

When Nakagawa Shuji’s grandfather, Kameiichi, turned ten years old, he went to work at Tarugen. This famed maker of oke (wooden pails or buckets) and barrels, had been established in Kyoto during the waning years of the Edo period (1603-1868), and was to become Kameiichi’s workplace for the next 40 years. In the process, Kameiichi…

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Christ reflection Japanese magic mirror maker

The Magic Mirror Maker

February 4, 2014

When light is directed onto the face of sacred magic mirror, or makkyo, and reflected to a flat surface, an image magically appears. Kyoto Journal sits down with the man rumored to be the last remaining makkyo maker in the world — Yamamoto Akihisa.

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The Wisdom of Shōjin Cooking

February 2, 2014

Shōjin ryōri is rooted in the concept that the earth and body are inseparable. It is only through attaining a perfect symbiosis with the land that we can truly reap the benefits of the earth.

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Mapping Kyoto: An Affair of the Heart

December 18, 2013

Judith Clancy is the author of three books about Kyoto, Exploring Kyoto, Kyoto Machiya Restaurant Guide and Kyoto City of Zen. She has mapped Kyoto in words and images, enabling countless people, residents and visitors alike, to explore the exceptional cultural, historical, religious and gastronomic heritage of this city.

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Tone Poems: Joel Stewart’s Continuing Artistic Odyssey

December 13, 2013

The sheer variety of images ranges between the hyper-realistic and the abstract: a gleaming white-and-blue ceramic sake ewer that could almost be plucked from the panel, a quiver of glowing vertical lines reminiscent of Star Trek’s transporter in mid-operation.

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Photography, Community, Space: Kyotographie’s Lucille Reyboz and Yusuke Nakanishi

March 23, 2013

Our theme will be “Tribe,” but not in an ethnic sense—it’s more in the sense of a community that shares the same sense of values.

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Roger Pulvers

February 25, 2013

When I arrived in Tokyo in 1967 after studying in Poland, I had only $300 left…I came down to Kyoto on the train, rented a little house by Midoro-ga-ike, and started writing short stories….

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An Interview with Arai Manta

February 25, 2013

Born and raised in Tokyo, Arai Manta has spent the last nine years tending bar at Club, a relaxed drinking spot that plays African music, jazz and off-the-wall Japanese pop….

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Listening to Vegetables: The Art of Tanahashi Toshio

January 16, 2013

The pleasure of shojin is to find freedom within limitation of using only vegetables.

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Aspirin

June 8, 2012

You want to know all about aspirin then you just go get yourself a good case of sciatica, nothing will teach you about aspirin better than a good case of sciatica…

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In Praise of Clay: Robert Yellin muses on the ties that bind art, life and environment    

April 21, 2012

Kyoto ceramic connoisseur Robert Yellin muses on the ties that bind art, life and environment

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Zen & the Art of Rejuvenation

February 24, 2012

Taizo-in launched its groundbreaking ‘Fusuma-e Project’ in the spring of 2011. The Zen temple is commissioning a young, unknown Kyoto-based artist to compose large sumi-e ink paintings on 64 new sliding doors, or fusuma…

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Of All the Wild Sakura: The Journals of Gary Snyder

December 9, 2011

My first stay in Japan was from May of ’56 to August ’57. I left to get a change of air, to reflect on my Zen practice, and to earn some dollars.

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